


Beautiful Unknown

by auselysium



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Endgame, Future Fic, M/M, cannon through 2.20.15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 20:55:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3425282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auselysium/pseuds/auselysium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aaron paces, wondering how he’s managed to find himself here again, waiting.  But if he knows Robert at all, and he’s quite certain he does even after all this time, he’ll show.  After all, where else is he going to go?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beautiful Unknown

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from and story inspired in part by Ingrid Michaelson's song of the same name. 
> 
> My first writing in over 3 years, so be gentle. :)

The light of a fading summer day slants through the window in the loft above, catching kicked-up dust in its long shafts as it stretches to the floor. The barn smells of warm hay and memories.

Aaron paces, wondering how he’s managed to find himself here again, waiting. But if he knows Robert at all, and he’s quite certain he does even after all this time, he’ll show. After all, where else is he going to go?

Manslaughter. That had been the ruling exactly four months ago.

“Guess that expensive London lawyer was worth it,” Paddy had said in his gentle way, eyeing Chas with due caution.

“Bloody, voodoo magician more like,” Chas had snapped, slamming a pint on the counter for another curious customer.

The whole village had been there at the Woolpack, it seemed. Waiting for word to come of the outcome of the trial. Everyone knew Andy would phone Diane straight away with the verdict, so they waited like blood thirsty vultures to watch the final downfall of Robert Sugden.

Aaron had been waiting then too but with far less malicious need for information.

“A year?” Diane’s voice had been so small, so disbelieving, almost like a child. “That’s all he’ll get for our Katie, dead?”

“Four months if he behaves himself,” Vic had added with a troubled sniff. “I don’t understand.”

Someone had attempted a joke, then. Something about the lawyer handling the murder charge and the divorce all in one go, and Aaron had taken that as his cue to leave.

Over the previous year, the secreted truth had finally worn Robert down, eating him raw from the inside out, dissolving his life all around him. His eyes had been so empty then, as if he wasn't really there. His work relations were faltering and his marriage that he'd sacrificed so much to protect was unraveling.

There had been countless times that Aaron would watch him sit alone, nursing a pint for hours at a time. And every time Aaron had thought, just for a moment, about going to sit with him. Giving him get some mutual assurance that he wasn’t alone and perhaps getting some of the same in return. But he’d kept his promise both to himself and his mother that things couldn’t carry on between Robert and himself and left him be.

As hard as his heart had ached, when he’d said he deserved better, he’d meant it.

Then, one night, just before Christmas, Aaron had been woken by a text notification ring he’d once been addicted to but hadn’t heard in months.

_You’ve kept your word all this time. Why? HOW?_

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Aaron had responded.

_Told you I would, didn’t I?_

_My head is completely done in, Aaron. Especially now._

_I warned you, Robert. Nothing good could come from keeping it secret._

_I can’t do this anymore._

His heart had started racing at those ominous words. He’d thrown his covers off ready to rush to wherever Robert might be, memories of the night at the quarry flashing through his mind when his phone had chimed once more.

_I’ll make sure they can’t link any of this back to you. I don’t know how but I will. It’s the least I can do._

Robert had turned himself in to the police the following morning.

Aaron still has the texts on his phone and he looks at them now, letting his thumb pass over the words on the screen. He scrolls up, going further and further back into his relationship with Robert.

Each line of text brings a new memory to mind. Some of the words make heat rise in his cheeks: memories of nights spent in fancy hotels, cheeky invitations for secret meetings, plans for rendezvous in this very barn. But many more remind him of the dreadful days after Katie's death, where Aaron had slipped into so many long forgotten behaviors and his relationship with Robert had reached it’s bitter end.

So why is he here then? Waiting for the man who had sucked him into his twisted lies? Who'd used him when he had need, refusing to admit to anything when the feelings became too real?

Because as much as he'd meant it when he said he deserved better, he'd meant it even more when he'd told Robert he loved him.

 _Kiss and make up?_ he reads on the glowing screen of his phone, just as he hears a soft click then heavy drag of the barn door being pushed open.

Aaron stands, brushing hay from his pant legs as that familiar figure rounds the door.

An aching relief floods Robert’s eyes as he sees Aaron. He lets out an audible sigh, looking as though he might deflate on the spot.

He’s wearing the suit he went to court in. The bespoke coat is now clutched carelessly in his hand. His hair is longer and it clings to his temples from sweat. He must have walked all the way from the village.

“You’re here,” he says.

Aaron puts his hands in his pockets, giving a small shrug. He starts walking slowly towards where Robert stands. “Yep.”

“I wasn’t sure you would be.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d be here either.” He stops a few feet away from him. From the closer distance, he can see effects of the past year and a half. Tension around his lips, deeper furrows on his brown, the skin around his eyes thin and tight.

Man alive, if he still isn’t gorgeous.

“You alright?” Aaron asks, after clearing his throat.

“What’d you think?”

“I think you’re lucky, that’s what I think.” Aaron says roughly.

Robert gives him a level gaze. “You’re right.”

“And you’re a bloody idiot.” Aaron snaps.

“That too.”

It a mere moment before Aaron’s hands find the back of Robert’s head and he brings their lips crashing together.

They kiss like the first time. Messy and hasty. Their breath coming fast and heavy through their noses because neither dares break away.

It’s been over a year since they have been together like this but it might as well have been an hour. They find, always so easily, those familiar places in each other that they'd claimed. Robert kisses down his neck, his hand cradling the base of Aaron’s skull. Aaron slides his hands over the curve of Robert's ass, pulling him ever closer.

Suit coats and tires are thrown to the floor. Tee shirts are ripped off over heads. Desperate hands find even more lonesome bodies. Noises of pleasure mask noises of penance.

It had come out during the course of the trial, much as Aaron had suspected it might, that all had not been as amenable that day at Wylie’s farm as Robert had originally told him. So as Aaron pushes Robert back against the floor, straddling his hips before capturing his lips in another bruising kiss, he perhaps he is a bit too rough. Exacting his punishment for those long ago lies with this sweet reward.

Robert had kept his promise about keeping the authorities away from Aaron, though. He’d never even been called to testify which he still doesn’t understand. For as much as his mother had cursed that expensive London lawyer, she has no idea what the man saved her in the end.

By the time their frantic rush of bodies comes to an end and heart rates have returned to normal, the sky is nearly black outside.  The evening creeps through the cracks in the barn's siding, cooling their skin.

Robert is silent, his eyes closed and Aaron assumes he’s fallen asleep. He watches him, wondering how long it’s been since Robert actually had a restful night. But then he sees his chest rise and fall with a long, cleansing sigh and the corners of his mouth curl into a small smile.

"That was different," Robert says after another moment.

Of course it had been different. Everything is different.

 _I'm not sharing you anymore_ , Aaron thinks. _You're mine._ Showing up here tonight had proven that.

"Different how?" He asks anyway.

“You’ve never been like that."

"Like what?"

Robert thinks. "So keen? Aggressive. Has it been as long for you as it has for me?"

Aaron snorts through his nose.

“If you’ve been fantasizing about me pining away for you this whole time, I hate to disappoint, mate."

Robert rolls onto his side, looking at Aaron.

"I'm not disappointed."

And there it is. That dangerous Robert Sugden smile, that sly, smooth voice that has always been his undoing. As Robert leans down, capturing Aaron’s mouth with another kiss, slow and thorough, Aaron is relieved to see that this whole ordeal from Katie’s death and the aftermath with Andy's suicide attempt, through the year of festering silence, ending with the trial and prison hasn’t erased his irresistible charm completely.

Pulling away, Robert holds Aaron's gaze as he gently brushes a pale scar with his fingertips. When Aaron trembles but doesn't flinch away, Robert bows his head and follows that touch with a somber kiss. Aaron swallows thickly. Another year of life and finally some professional of help has left him with a clear idea of what those scars are: battle wounds from a war towards self acceptance.

"I can't even begin to tell you how sorry I am,” Robert whispers between kisses. His fringe brushes against Aaron’s hip. "I was so desperate to keep Chrissy, to keep everything hidden that I couldn’t see what was happening to you. What I was doing to you...”

It had been this same honest repentance that had garnered him the reduced sentence. Winning over judges and jury alike. But Aaron knows it wasn't just an act; for all his flaws Robert was sincere. At least with him.

“Robert.” Aaron stops him with a gentle brush of his fingers against his jaw. “We both made mistakes back then. Let’s not do this tonight. Not now. We’ve got time.”

Robert nods, the tension on his face relenting. Aaron’s final word was a luxury he hasn’t been given in a great while and with a lick of his lips he turns his full attention back to the man beneath him.

Robert undoes him. Tender in a way Aaron had always dreamed he could be. Hammering home with deft touches and his slowly rocking body exactly why Aaron had waited here tonight.

He's not still in love with Robert - too much time has passed for that. But when Robert sighs his name into his ear, he knows he could be again. Because even when he knew what they were doing was wrong, even when he knew Robert didn't feel the same way about him that astounding possibility of _them_ was always enough to keep him coming back for more.  And he realizes now, always will be.

Nothing lasts forever, but they just might.

Later, they lay back against the hay, the same ratty blanket from New Year’s day thrown over their tangles bodies, though they hardly need it tonight.

“So, what now?” Aaron asks.

"I suppose we finally should get a bed in here. This hay makes the cot I slept on inside feel downright luxurious."

"Shouldn’t you think about getting a proper flat? I mean, what will you do? Where will you live?"

Robert stares at the ceiling. Aaron can just make out a few stars through a hole between some singles but he's pretty sure Robert isn’t seeing anything but his own thoughts.

“I have no idea," he finally says. "I can’t stay here, obviously. Andy, Vic. None of them want anything to do with me anymore. And Lawrence can’t wait to get rid of me.”

“I can’t stay here either." Aaron says.

“Why?”

"No one’s going to exactly be pleased I’m here with you, are they?"

 _And that I plan on staying with you_ goes unsaid but from the warmth in Robert's eyes it is very much understood.

"Look at the pair of us then.” Robert stretches, rolling onto his side. “Going it alone."

With a tentativeness that also seems new, he drags his knuckles across the stubble of Aaron’s jaw, letting his hand come to cup Aaron’s cheek. Aaron brings his hand up to cover Robert’s and for a moment they are still, eyes locked, promises made, affections confirmed.

"We could always go back to France."

“France?" Robert balks, a laugh bursting from his chest. "You can’t be serious.”

Aaron shrugs. "It wasn’t that bad, really.”

Robert laughs again, deep and free, and a wide smile forms on Aaron's face.

“Aaron Livesy," Robert says as his laughter finally fades. "You’ll be the death of me."

Then quickly, before Aaron can even start to react any of the number of ways he could to a statement like that - anger, offence, regret, grief, guilt - Robert presses his finger tips to Aaron's lips.

"In the best way.”

A summer night sings outside, the chorus of bugs and leaves rustling on their branches forms a protective blanket of sound that will shroud them, whenever they are ready, to venture together into the dark and beautiful unknown.


End file.
